Long Black Veil
by Black Squirrel Productions
Summary: Song fic set after OotP with Harry mourning Sirius. Not slash, but it has enough subtext in it to keep a 'shiper happy. I'm not big on song fics,but I think this one has a redeaming quality: it proves you can do HP angst without any cutting. Whoda thunk i


**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter. The content within this story does not reflect upon J.K. Rowling or anyone officially with Harry Potter. This story is mine, along with anything you don't recognize. (Basically.) Do not borrow from or archive this story without my permission.

**Feedback**: I love it, and all will be read and appreciated. Including criticism, since I know I can improve. Flame if you wish, but if you're going to then show a bit of spine and don't do it anonymously. I might wanna return the favor. ;)

**Author Notes (January 12, 2005):** I'm reposting all my stories from all my accounts here, as soon as I re-read and correct anything I find. I still probably won't catch all of it, and the formatting is giving me hell, so if you catch mistakes or see something you think I should work on please tell me, and I'll turn some attention on it.

**A/N²:**Yes, this is a song fic. Done to _A Long Black Veil_ by the Walkabouts. There is also another song by the same title by The Dave Matthews Band (originally doneby Johnny Cash, one of the select few country singers I can listen to without shoving pencils in my ear. Kay, back on subject Scefing…) that I actually like better, but I couldn't think of anything to go with the song. Well, yes, I could, and it is a very interesting idea, and would love to see someone write it, but I know what I want thisto be centered around and so that one wouldn't work. So, yah. Here goes the rambling insanity that is song fics.

* * *

The rain beat a tattoo on his window, silver where the moon caught it, orange where the street lamp shown. The rain could be his tears, since he couldn't show them here. Hedwig hooted once, a low melancholy sound that would pierce him to the core. If he had one left. He didn't feel as though he had one left, had anything left. The rain kept beating and he felt an insane urge to run outside, to scream, to cry where the tears couldn't be seen or noticed. He would have, but he couldn't find the motivation. It doesn't matter though. Why should anything? Sirius was gone. He had mattered. Just as he _had_ been.

_Beyond the reach_

_There are rows of tender hooks_

_Where nothing seems_

_To justify a second look_

_And not a soul is found_

_To tear them hooks on down_

The memories, they wouldn't stop. No matter how he tried, they kept coming. The shack, the promise, the smile, the hope, the house, the fight, the advice, all of it gone with the man who had been his only true family. But no, it wasn't gone. It was here to follow him, a dark cloud for the rest of his days, a reminder of what went wrong, what he did wrong, what could have been. The laughter, the happiness, gone. And in it's place a darkness, a cold, surgical cut slicing through him at once painful with the agony of loss, and dull with the uselessness of it all. The suffocation of mistakes crushing his chest in, the relief as the tears broke free in wretched sobs as he realized the worse loss. The love.

_Famous times_

_Tattooed on this burlap skin_

_And gun cold days_

_Shot to pieces above my head_

_Now tell who's that clown_

_Who pulled this veil on down_

His best friend, mentor and father figure all rolled into one smiling shaggy ex-convict, ripped from him and taking all the emotions he inspired with him. Which left nothing.

_Long black veil_

_Long black_

_Long black veil_

_Long black_

Always he had someone to talk to. It had been Sirius. Now there was no one. Correspondence forcefully kept at least every three days as bile would rise higher in his throat with every stroke of the quill. He kept talking, but there was no one he could talk to. No one would understand. Darkness seemed forever just a hair's breadth away mixing with the light thoughts and forming a gray.

But the gray was too dark. And he couldn't make it lighter. He couldn't lift the weight, it just kept growing heavier while his knees seemed to crumple and give way beneath him. If he could just talk to Sirius, it would be gone, he would feel whole again. If he could talk with anyone who could understand it would get better. But no one could. And so he couldn't heal. Couldn't see past the vision of falling through that black veil whenever he shut his eyes. So he stopped shutting them.

_If light's a brighter gray_

_Please then turn it up_

_This whole town wears its veil down_

_And wrestles with some all-night clown_

_And he don't sleep_

_And he don't sleep_

Not that he deserved respite. It was his fault. If he would have listened to Sirius' advice, the visions would have ended, and he wouldn't have gone to that room. He wouldn't have lured Sirius to his death.

The Department of Mysteries.

In one of the dammed rooms of the cursed place was where Sirius now lay. No grave, nothing left. Just on the other side of that thin black veil. That is where Harry would end also. Once he finished what he was here for. This purposeless life deigned to assign a chore to him. But he would face it; he would win. Then he would go through the stone archway, through the long black veil, to Sirius again.

_Long black veil_

_Long black_

_Long black veil_

_Long black_

_Long black veil_

_Long black_

_Long black veil_

_Tell me long black_


End file.
